empty house. cleared
hardwood floor, except
for an oily smear where my saag
paneer spilled the third
to last night we lived there
together; we had already
packed the side tables, so
i balanced my last available bowl
on the armrest of the couch…
inevitable splat of creamed
spinach in the dust, a photo
of your dad in iowa lightly
speckled where it sat. i’d
made you slap some drywall
over the little holes where
all our family photos hung
so the landlord wouldn’t ding us:
like toothpaste over pimples, cure
that draws attention to the spot,
off-white dots in little pairs,
to hold the pictures level. while
you worked, you whistled something
that sounded like “matchmaker”
from fiddler except i know
you’ve never heard that song
before & are tone deaf, so it could
have been anything, anything
at all. now you’re in a uhaul
headed west, your last turd
floating in the toilet because,
after the unseasonable storm
in which you left, the power’s out
and the generator doesn’t reach
the place that was our house.
i’ll have to drive back & flush
when the water returns,
back past the houses and the lawns
and neighbor dogs. the last
afternoon, we spread a final load
of laundry on the bed so i could pick
out my things, you yours; dryer sheets
floated like waxy stiff and light
translucent birds among
the dog hairs & cum stains
…the bed the bed the bed:
i’ve been thinking about
the bed, locus of this & that,
sleep & sex, arguing &
laundry, gin rummy with
a flashlight in the outage, tug
with the dog when we least
were in the mood for it,
her green ball a favorite
for growling through, a scrap
of an old pink hippopotamus
good in a pinch, her bark
ripping me awake at 5 am
when sleep had finally reached
its warm arm across me
to cup the fat around my belly
button, with breath so hot
i’d have to turn my head
and smell the colder air
of the twisted birches crowding
fast the gravel cul-de-sac
where now i can remember you
apologizing and hugging
me goodbye: our little turn-
around. from which it is
impossible to continue, impossible
to carry its little bag forward
anywhere, and hard to hear
its faintly crunching
sound. i’ll miss you.
HANNAH LOEB is a 4th year English PhD candidate at the University of Virginia, writing a dissertation about the ghost of meter haunting the contemporary free verse line. She earned her BA from Yale in 2012 and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2015. Her poetry has appeared in Booth, Ninth Letter, Oxford Poetry, The Moth, American Chordata, and elsewhere.
KELANA is a creative studio for experimentation and exploration.
